By John Gilstrap

I might have mentioned a few dozen times in this space that I spent 15 years in the fire and rescue service, at a volunteer department that ran over 14,000 calls per year. My name is on thousands of those reports. I’ve been burned, shot at, and threatened by one very large knife. I ran two plane crashes, uncountable car crashes, delivered two babies and performed CPR hundreds of times. In the end, I saved more lives than I lost, and I never got paid a dime for any of it. That’s a point of pride to me.

Every line of work has its own vocabulary–rhetorical shortcuts that relay information that others might not understand, but mean very specific things to insiders. I thought I’d take you inside the firehouse for a peek at our peculiar dictionary. (Warning: Some of what follows is . . . insensitive. If you’ve never been an emergency responder, it might be hard to understand, but trust me when I say it is entirely possible to be compassionate and insensitive at the same time. Sometimes, the humor is the only good part of a really crappy day.)

Now, in no particular order . . .

FNG: The full pronunciation of effing new guy, aka rookie. Also known as a red hat, because in my jurisdiction, FNGs wore red helmets on the fireground. I wanted them to wear cowbells, but they refused. We also called them wheel chocks, even though real wheel chocks always knew what they were supposed to do, and they never did stupid stuff.

Blue flares: There is no such thing as a blue flare, but FNGs didn’t know that. It was always entertaining to send them over to the farthest-away fire station with orders to bring back a box of blue flares. Of course, when they arrived at the target station, those folks would have just given them away to another station, miles away of course. That fun could go on for hours. It was like a cat chasing a laser pointer. Smoke shifters (either left-handed or right-handed) could be used in lieu of blue flares.

Box o’ Rocks: The intellectual assessment of someone who, say, didn’t catch on to the blue flares gambit after two or three stations.

Ticks: The name paid firefighters used for volunteers, purportedly because we were annoying and always hanging around. The fact that said volunteers built the firehouse and purchased all of the rolling stock they rode on and furniture they sat in often went unacknowledged.

Squirrel: This one had at least two meanings. One was another derogatory term for volunteers, but another dealt with enthusiasm. To “squirrel a call” meant either to drive to the scene in your POV (privately owned vehicle) or to respond from the firehouse with a spare piece of fire apparatus.

Paid maids: In the early days, this was the volunteers’ term for paid personnel. Among their daily tasks was to clean the kitchen and the bathrooms. (No, the two sides of the house did not always get along.)

Big eye: Have you ever encountered a challenge that was so huge and so out of the ordinary that you kind of vapor locked and didn’t know what to do first? That’s the big eye. When the world is on fire or people are screaming for assistance, it’s a bad thing to get. FNGs get the big eye a LOT.

Fireground: The general term for the scene of any emergency involving fire and rescue apparatus. In my jurisdiction, the senior OIC (officer in charge) of the First due (see below) wagon (see below) was in overall charge of the fireground, while the senior aide (see below) on the ambulance was in charge of patient care.

OIC: Translates to officer in charge, but is not necessarily tied to rank. In my jurisdiction, the OIC of any piece of apparatus was the person in the shotgun seat (right-hand front seat). If, for example, a captain was driving, but a sergeant was in the seat, the sergeant would be in charge of the fireground. It was a great way to train up-and-coming officers.

Fireground Commander: For larger incidents, command would be passed to a chief officer. Chiefs were the senior officer of their respective fire departments, but they rarely commanded individual pieces of apparatus. Chiefs had their own buggies but rarely wrested command from the first due OIC. It was, however, customary for the OIC to offer command to the chief, who then decided whether or not to take it. To be relieved without first offering would be a slap in the face.

Bugles: Fire officer rank insignia. Lieutenants wear one bugle on their collar points. Captains wear two . . . chiefs of departments wear five.

Wagon: This has changed in many jurisdictions, but where I ran, every fire station housed two pumpers (what you think of when you think “firetruck”). The first one out the door on a call was the wagon, and the second was the engine. Together, both the wagon and engine were called an engine company. Thus, Wagon 14 or Engine 14 were individual vehicles. Engine Company 14 was two vehicles, and when they were on the road, it was time for the fire to be very scared.

Aide: The OIC of the ambulance.

First due: The area to which a department or a specialty vehicle (ladder truck, hazmat truck, etc.) is dispatched first. The next closest is second due, and so forth. In my jurisdiction, for a commercial alarm, the dispatch would sound something like this: “Box 1404 for the structure fire. Engine companies 14,13 and 2, Trucks 14 and 13, Squad 2, Ambulance 14.” The first number of the box number (in this case 14) indicates who’s first due, the second part is a rough idea of how far the call is from the station. (Fire station 14 sits in the center of box 1400. Ditto every other fire station.)

Smells and bells: I can’t begin to imagine the number of dispatches that started with “odor of smoke” or “fire alarm sounding.” These calls got the full boat (full alarm assignment–see below), rousted a bunch of people out of bed, and left the beleaguered first due engine company officer with a complex report to fill out.

Working fire (or a worker): A real fire with real flames. The opposite of smells and bells.

Second alarm (or third . . .): Different types of structures have different alarm assignments. In my jurisdiction, a single family house fire had an alarm assignment of two engine companies, a truck (ladder truck), a heavy squad (think rolling tool box with lots of cool toys) and an ambulance. At the top of the heap, the hospital had an alarm assignment of four engine companies, two trucks, two squads and (I think) three ambulances. When the fireground commander strikes a second alarm on a fire, he’s ordering up a duplication of the first alarm. Remember this when you hear about a four-alarm fire.

Special alarm: Say the fireground commander only wants one more engine company or one more truck. That would be a special alarm, not to be confused with an additional alarm (see above).

Scratch: I think this one’s unique to volunteer departments. A piece of apparatus scratches when it fails to mark responding within three minutes after dispatch. When a house scratches, the next due piece of apparatus will be dispatched in its place. There is no greater humiliation.

Second (or third, or fourth) call: These happen quite a lot during weather events, when everyone is running their wheels off. Let’s say Wagon and Ambulance 14 are already running a call, when the station gets hit again for an incident. Dispatch knows that Engine 14 and Ambulance 14-2 are in the station, but they have no way of knowing if they are manned. So the dispatch would sound like, “Box 1425 for the auto accident. Engine Company 14 (your second call), Ambulance 14 (your second call), Engine Company 2, Ambulance 2.” Whoever got out first got the call.

To cut numbers: Occasionally, someone would walk into the station with an injury or illness, or we would wander up on something while in service (see below). In this case, because the dispatcher has no idea that there’s an incident, we’d radio in and ask them to “cut numbers” on a new incident, and we’d give them the address. This would make the incident official and take the appropriate vehicle out of service.

In service/out of service. This is counter-intuitive to a lot of people. A piece of apparatus is in service when it is available for a call. When on a call (not available for another call) it is out of service. It was common, when we were assisting an ambulance with a medical call, for the dispatcher to ask us if we could “go in service for a call.” If we were, then there no second calls would be needed.

Bidding a call: Say that Ambulance 14 is just clearing the hospital (which is in Station 13’s first due) after dropping off a patient when a call comes in for, say, an auto accident in Box 1313. If Ambulance 14’s OIC thinks he’s closer, he can bid the call. It would sound something like, “Ambulance 14, Dispatch. We’re closer. Put Ambulance 13 in service.” It’s kind of humiliating for Station 13. In the old days, on rare occasions, there were bidding wars, where neither vehicle agreed to go in service, so there’d be a race to the scene. Whoever got there first, got the call.

Tapped (or tapped out): To be dispatched. “We got tapped last night for a wreck on Walker Road.” “They tapped us out for worker at the Bates Motel.”

Putting a good stop: When a crew extinguishes a fire quickly and with minimum damage, they’ve put a good stop on the fire.

Cellar saver: Exactly the opposite of a good stop. When the roof ends up in the basement (i.e., the structure is a total loss), the fireground commander is credited with saving the cellar. That’s . . . bad.

Snot-slinger: A big fire. Aka, the big one.

Teeth-hair-and-eyeball: The kind of incident where the most useful pieces of equipment are body bags and tweezers.

DRT: Dead right there. (A play on DOA.)

Federal Q: That wonderful siren on the front bumper that sounds like an air raid siren on speed. Melting the Q meant to have it spun up really high. Combined with the air horn in rush hour, melting the Q created lanes out of stopped traffic where cars had nowhere to go. I had a driver for years who would melt the Q at oh-dark-early, shouting his mantra out the window: “If I gotta be up, you gotta be up, too!”

I’m sure there are many I’ve forgotten, but this is a good start. So, what about you, TKZers? Y’all come from interesting backgrounds. Give us a peek into your secret dictionary.

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One last thing. If you’re a teacher or if you’re with a book club, and you’d like me to Zoom with you, drop me an email at john@johngilstrap.com

“You get to a point where you get to the edges of a room, and you can go back and go where you’ve been and basically recycle stuff.” — Stephen King

By PJ Parrish

I knew something was up when I started looking forward to pulling weeds.

Every morning, I’d check the Tallahassee weather and plan my day. First, I’d survey the front and back yards to see what needed attention. Then I’d dead-head the rose bushes. The azaleas needed pruning, so that took a good hour. Eventually came the highlight of my day — pulling weeds. A blissful hour of mindless productivity. As the sun dipped lower, it was time to head out to the nursery because you could never have enough mulch or Miracle-Gro tomato food.

By the time I got back, there was just enough time to shower, make a vodka gimlet and take it outside where I’d sit in a lawn chair while I hose-watered the lawn.

I was as happy as a little garden slug — except for a gnawing guilt that seemed to abate as the vodka glass emptied only to return as I went back indoors. The guilt, of course, came because I wasn’t writing.

I passed the whole of last winter this way. My garden flourished as my novel lay fallow in the laptop. And then, one morning, it hit me: I didn’t want to write anymore.

It was gone. The urge, the need, the pleasure. It was all gone. At first, I was upset. For two reasons. First, I write with my sister and thus had a contract, a commitment, to our partnership. And second, well, that’s complicated. So many folks want to be published writers, and I have known that success. It almost felt ungrateful to stop.

But here’s the truth. I want to quit. I have quit. I have not worked on my novel for months now, and after the initial bad feelings, I’m finding I’m relieved.  I’m relieved that I don’t have to worry about getting the book published, be it by traditional means or the hard slog of self-publishing. Relieved that I don’t have to climb on the self-promotion hamster wheel.  Relieved that I won’t have to feel the sting of disappointment if it doesn’t sell or get well-reviewed. But mostly, I feel relieved that I can channel my energy, creativity, time and love into other things.

I’m coming up on my 70th birthday soon. That doesn’t bother me that much, because outside of aching knees and bad eyes, I’ve got good health. We’ve got some money in the bank and not many bills. I have family and friends to sustain me. I have two great dogs to take me on walks.

Phillip Roth said he was done when he was 79 and 27 novels deep. Alice Munro did so at 81, a few months before winning a Nobel for a career that includes 14 short-story collections. Munro told a reporter, “I don’t have the energy anymore.” Roth left a Post-it on his computer reading, “The struggle with writing is over.”

I read up on Munro while writing this post. She gave a fascinating interview about her decision where she said she wanted to rejoin the world. “I think you do get to a stage where you sort of think about your life in a different way,” she said. “And perhaps, when you’re my age, you don’t wish to be alone as much as a writer has to be. It’s like, at the wrong end of life, sort of becoming very sociable.”

I get that. My time now will be given to my real people, not my imaginary ones.

Will I change my mind? Perhaps. Things can happen in your life, things you can’t anticipate, that can alter your universe — and it can happen in a split second.

Stephen King, in 1999, was hit by a car while walking down a road near his Maine home. He almost died. He described the pain of recovery as unbearable.  His wife, Tabitha, knew he was drowning and set up a writing nook downstairs in their house. King didn’t want to try another novel so he decided to write about writing. A year later, he produced On Writing. In it, he writes with brutal honesty about his struggle with drugs and alcohol and how hard it was to recover his love of writing again. He went on to finish a script for the miniseries Rose Red, calling it a therapy that was more effective than any drug the doctors gave him. But once the script was finished, he decided to quit.

“I don’t want to finish up like Harold Robbins,” he said, referring to the pulp novelist who started with well-reviewed works such as A Stone for Danny Fisher, later suffered a damaging stroke and ended his career in steep decline. “That’s my nightmare.”

King found his way back. With last year’s novel The Institute, he’s closing in on 100 novels. He still needs to write. I don’t. At least not now.

What about you guys? Some of you have sturdy careers and a nice back list. Some of you are still working on your first book. Most of you are probably somewhere in between, maybe published but not as successful as you’d like, maybe finished a couple manuscripts and still looking for that one editor who says yes.

You might have considered giving up. How do you know if it’s time to quit?

Well, if you want to read a funny but very truthful take on that question, click here and read Chuck Wendig on the subject.

If you’re thinking of quitting, maybe I offer some things to chew on before you do. Here are some signs, in my opinion, that you SHOULDN’T quit for good.

You’ve got some life issues that are sapping your energy. A divorce? A family health problem? Financial issues that might mean you have to focus harder on your day job? That’s okay. Take some time off and deal with whatever’s distracting you. Work the problem. Then, when the clouds clear, you’ll might find your creative juice coming back. Don’t let anyone try to tell you that you MUST WRITE EVERY DAY.  If something is off in your life, you might need to step away.  Writing is like exercising. Yeah, you should do it every day if you can. But if you’ve got a broken foot, stop and heal first.

Your story is going nowhere and you can’t see a way out.  All writers stall. All writers paint themselves into corners. But some folks stay with a story out of pure stubbornness. (I know this twist will work. I just gotta find a way!) Find a reliable beta reader who will TELL YOU THE TRUTH. They won’t be able to tell you how to fix it (and shouldn’t; that’s your job). But talking about the log-jam will help clear your brain.

You’re writing the wrong book. Here’s a dirty secret: Almost every successful writer has abandoned a book in mid-stream. Quitting is not the sign of a loser; it’s the sign of a professional. You have to face the fact that not every idea is a good one. Let it go. Sometimes, you have to give up on story that’s not working so a new story can move into your brain. I worked on a series book for four months (and hated every moment of it) until I finally tossed it out. Soon after, discouraged and depressed about the book, I went on a scheduled vacation to Paris. A week later, I had an idea for a stand-alone that got me so excited I finished the thing in three months. (click here to see The Killing Song). 

Your character(s) bore you. This sounds like a no-brainer, but sometimes, we grab onto a character and gnaw him or her to death. We think he or she sounds fascinating but there’s something fundamentally flawed about them. And I don’t mean in a good, deeply human interesting way, but in a death-to-the-story boring way. Unless you are foaming at the mouth to meet up with your character every day, ready to follow their every move and take down their every word, how can you produce a good story? You have to be in love with your characters, even the black hat ones. If you don’t want to spend time with them, how do you expect a reader to want to?

You’re tired. We all are right now. The forced isolation of the virus, the political climate, the constant slow simmer of dread. Understand that the fatigue you’re feeling might have nothing to do with your book. It’s exterior to that but it’s deep and it’s not going away any time soon. I can’t tell you how to deal with this black cloud; we’re all finding our coping mechanisms. (Mine is a hard break from news, exercise, walks with my dogs.). Get outside. Reconnect with old friends but call, don’t email or text.

Okay, now here are some signs that you should quit, in my humble experience:

You’re not having fun anymore. 

That’s it. There’s only one good reason to quit. The whole process of writing has become something of a chore, a duty rather than a delight. Again, I don’t mean to sound like I’m whining here. Or that I am dismissing all the years of wonderful writing time I’ve had. Or, as I said, that I am ungrateful for the success that has come my way.  I have been blessed; I’ve been lucky. I had a helluva a run for twenty years in the mystery biz, and seven years in romance before that. But I’ll let Chuck Wendig speak for me:

You’re not having fun. This one, too, is tricky, because writing isn’t always an act of eating cotton candy while happy puppies squirm at your feet. Some days are purely reserved for shoveling earth. Some days are like pulling bad teeth. That’s normal. It isn’t always fun. Hell, it isn’t often fun. But there’s also an evaluation you might make — again, after some time with it — where you realize, you’re just not enjoying this. It holds no surprises for you. It feels rote and routine, and if it feels that way to you, it may very well feel that way to a reader. Once again, a strategic retreat is called upon.

With our most recent book, last year’s The Damage Done, I think we left our hero Louis Kincaid in a good place. The circle, for him, feels complete. We done him good. I don’t want to start phoning it in. So I am retreating. Into life, friends, and especially reading, where I am ready to get acquainted with the dazzling spectrum of new writers who are infusing our genre.

I am putting down the pen. Except for this blog and you all, which I have grown to love. I might pick up the pen again. I probably will. But now now, this feels right. Thanks for listening, friends.

Photo by Tincho Franco from unsplash.com

A brain worm has occupied my cerebrum over the past couple of months. Its conception resulted from the death of a dear friend who was more than a decade older than I. His wife called to inform me of his passing and then proceeded to give me too much information as to what had occurred. They had apparently engaged in a bit of strenuous activity during the night and in the morning my friend failed to wake up. She felt that she was somewhat at fault. I assured her (while struggling to keep the smile out of my voice) that, even if she had been the cause of his departure, I was sure her late husband would have preferred that sendoff to, say, a fiery car crash (which is the comparison Richard Pryor made when his father passed under similar circumstances). 

My friend’s wife then asked me for some advice about his obituary. Her issue was whether she should say that my friend passed “suddenly” or “unexpectedly.” She was worried that someone might think that he had committed suicide and wanted to be sure she used the right word. My off-the-cuff response was that she should avoid using either and just list his date of birth as “sunrise” and his date of passing as “sunset.” She liked that and told me that her husband used to tell her that I always knew just what to say. 

I actually dodged a bullet. I was unsure about the answer to her question. I subsequently started to obsess over what the difference may or may not be when one uses either “suddenly” or “unexpectedly,” particularly when describing the occasion of a death. They seem to be used interchangeably, particularly when the individual being memorialized has voluntarily gone ahead, as it were. 

I’ve done a couple of deep research dives into the topic and found opinions to be all over the place. The two words appear to mean the same thing at times, though not always. My favorite passage in an English language novel, that being the conversation between Bill and Mike in The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, illustrates this. Mike, in response to a question from Bill, tells Bill that he went bankrupt “gradually, and then suddenly.” If Mike had used the word “unexpectedly” instead of “suddenly” it would have been wrong since if one starts to go bankrupt, the completion of the process is not unexpected, though it can happen suddenly. It’s different, however, in many other cases generally — an earthquake or tornado, to name but two — and in obituaries involving someone who takes their own life. It seems as if either adverb could appropriately be used.

I’ll apologize for being morbid, but when you are reading an obituary and see that someone died “unexpectedly” or “suddenly” do you assume that they passed of their own volition? Is one word more appropriate than the other in those cases?  Or do they usually mean the same thing? Is it a case of “to-may-to” vs. “to-mah-to”? You don’t have to justify your answer though I am sure the reasons one way or the other would certainly be interesting. 

Thank you. Be well, happy, and good to yourself. Remember the oxygen mask rule: put yours on first and then assist others. 

Photo by Pablo Heimplatz from unsplash.com

But wait! There’s more. I will be absent on Saturday, August 8, as I am relinquishing this space to the always quietly gracious Joe Moore, who will reflect on TKZ’s very special anniversary which happens to land on that date. I will also be gone on Saturday, August 22, when Lisa Black, one my favorite authors and people (as we all know, that isn’t always the same thing!), will be discussing a topic which provides the driving force behind Every Kind of Wicked, which is Book Six in her Gardiner and Renner series and which drops on August 25.  I’ll be back on September 5 and happy to see you.

Sue Grafton, Wikimedia Commons (Mark Coggins)

Before Sue Grafton hit with her alphabet series, she went through a bitter divorce. In an interview she said, “I used to lie in bed at night just thinking of ways to do him in. And I came up with some doozies. But I knew I was going to get caught at it because I credit the police with quite a bit of intelligence. And I knew I’d flub it. So I thought, why don’t I put this plot between the covers of a book and get paid for it? And that launched this whole new career.”

Have you ever written anything to more positively channel some of your, er, more antisocial emotions?

It’s my distinct pleasure to introduce Ruth Harris to TKZ, with an excellent post about how to craft an elevator pitch that sells. Take it away, Ruth!

Is this a dream? Or will it be a nightmare?

There you are—

• At a conference in line for coffee. You turn around. The person behind you is Big Shot Editor at publishing collosus, Simon, Macmillan & Random Penguin.
• Waiting for a taxi in the rain when an empty cab/your Uber pulls up. The woman next to you is publishing’s hottest agent. She is drenched and on her way to an important meeting. She asks (begs) to share your ride.
• On a plane and your seat mate is the famous movie producer who’s known for lavishing Big Bucks on hot, new properties.

It’s do or die time.
You have seconds…
Then what?
Do you panic?
Freeze?
Are you tongue tied?
Do you babble?
Or have you prepared—and practiced—a killer elevator pitch?
Are you ready to razzle dazzle em?
And if not, why not?
Because the well-crafted and polished elevator pitch can make the difference between meh and a reaction that will be passionate.

Meaning before details: start with the big picture.

Readers/editors/agents take only a few seconds to make their buy decision.
Authors have the same few seconds to make their sale.
According to molecular biologist John Medina of the University of Washington School of Medicine, the human brain requires meaning before details. When listeners doesn’t understand the basic concept right at the beginning, they have a hard time processing the rest of the information.
Bottom line: explain the hook or basic concept first.
Then go into the details.

Example #1:

“Susie is trying to kill David by putting arsenic in his Red Bull because he cheated on her with her best friend, Elaine, but then Peter and Marie die.”
Uh. What? Who’s doing what to whom and why should anyone care? Big Shot agent yawns, checks the time, can’t wait to get out of elevator.

Instead: A betrayed wife’s murderous vengeance ends in the death of two innocent children.
Big Shot agent’s ears perk up. S/he is dying to know more.
Then come the details.

Example #2:

“Tim has to get to the coal mine before Wyatt so he can warn his brother about the goons hired by the 93-year-old evil mastermind who owns the mine and plans to destroy humanity with nukes.”
Huh? Followed by sound of confused Very Important editor’s brain switching off as s/he thinks about what to have for lunch.

Instead: Estranged brothers must work together to make their way past vicious dogs and armed guards to enter an abandoned mine and save the world from nuclear annihilation.
Very Important editor’s eyes widen. S/he can’t wait to hear what comes next.
Then come the details.

Don’t be afraid to be outrageous.

A famous but obnoxious TV chef hides from a serial killer in a London training school for snooty butlers.
An opposites-attract romance between a plumber’s apprentice and a poet with a stopped-up sink.
A loud-mouthed, crass political pundit gets drunk and comes to in a Buddhist monastery dedicated to serenity and meditation.

Don’t be afraid to refer to other books or authors, hit movies or TV series.

Gone With The Wind—as written by John Le Carré.
Gone With The Wind—as written by Michey Spillane
Gone With The Wind—as written by Barbara Cartland.
James Bond meets Hannibal Lector. They do not discuss fine wine and gourmet menus.
Game of Thrones. In a submarine.

Bottom Line: Sell the sizzle. Not the steak.

It’s old but relevant advice.
Before launching into the details of plot and character, you need to provoke excitement and curiosity first. That’s why the hook or the killer concept is the most important thing you’ll write.
It must be short, simple, clear, memorable, and easily repeatable.

Keep it short.

But my book is a 200K fantasy epic. You expect me to explain it to someone in a short sentence?
Yep.
Two Stanford grad students had an idea they thought would change the world, but they needed money to turn their idea into reality. Here’s their pitch to potential investors. “Organizes the world’s information and makes it universally accessible.”
In 9 simple words and 69 characters (less than the length of a Tweet), that elevator pitch bagged the needed $$$.
The two grad students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page—and their company, Google—were in business.

KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid).

Shakespeare said it this way: “Brevity is the soul of wit.”
Mies Van Der Rohe’s approached it from another angle: “Less is more.”
So did Albert Einstein who explained his Theory of Relativity in three letters, one number and an equal sign: E = mc².
Steve Jobs heeded their advice to make Apple one of the world’s most successful companies.

• 1984 won’t be like “1984”
•  Think Different.
•  iPhone — “Apple Reinvents the phone”
•  iPod — “1,000 songs in your pocket.”
• MacBook Air — “The world’s thinnest notebook.”

Apple website and stores, company execs, sales reps, and press releases are all on board and repeat these simple phrases over and over.
You can follow the same approach by using your hook—short, simple, memorable, repeatable—everywhere.

• As a headline for your blurb
• As a tweet or newsletter subject line
• To introduce yourself to your audience when you start a speech
• On the home page of your website
• On your business card
• On your author page
• In your author bio
• As a keyword

How simple? How about this?

The hot new bestselling thriller, The Chain, was launched with a three-word pitch: “Jaws for parents.”
Simple, to the point, easy for everyone to remember, easy for anyone to repeat.

Or this?

English mystery author, Adam Croft, launched his successful self-publishing career with a simple question: “Could you murder your wife to save your daughter?”

Embrace the power of repetition.

Successful politicians—ones who become President—embrace the power of repetition.

• The New Deal
• Make America Great Again
• Nixon’s The One
• Give Em Hell, Harry
• I Like Ike
• All the Way With LBJ
• Change We Can Believe In

Advertisers have learned the same lesson. They spend millions of dollars to repeat the same simple phrases over and over because they understand the power of repetition.

• Nike — Just Do It
• Hallmark – When you care enough to send the very best
• Burger King – Have it your way.
• U.S. Marine Corps — Semper Fi
• Bounty — The Quicker Picker Upper
• Lay’s — Betcha Can’t Eat Just One
• Dunkin’ Donuts — America Runs on Dunkin’
• The New York Times — All the News That’s Fit to Print”

Savvy politicians and advertisers don’t get bored with the repetition. Neither do their audiences. Emulate their success and don’t be afraid of repetition.

Make it memorable—and easily repeatable.

You will be the first to use your elevator pitch—but you do not want to be the last.

• Agents need a powerful hook to pitch publishers and TV and movie producers.
• Editors need a potent pitch to persuade their advertising, marketing and sales departments that your book is worth their time and energy.
• Your fans and readers will use your great hook to spread the word when they recommend your book to friends and family.
• Bloggers and reviewers will use your words to attract their readers.

10 tips for creating a powerful pitch.

1. Research the headlines and blurbs of the bestsellers in your genre. What exact words do they use? What exact words occur over and over? Make a list of the ones you find most powerful and exciting, and use them for inspiration.
2. Read the book descriptions on promo sites and keep the ones you love to refer to when you write your own fab elevator pitch.
3. Be on the lookout for taglines other authors use to pitch their book in their FaceBook, BookBub, and Amazon ads.
4. Read your own book—even if it’s for the fiftieth time!—to search for interesting words and turns of phrase. You might come upon a forgotten gem that’s just perfect.
5. Consult your dead darlings, the ones you killed, (You do save them, don’t you?) for more ideas.
6. Consider chapter titles that might make a great hook or pitch intro.
7. Here are 5 suggestions from BookBub about how to write a killer elevator pitch.
8. David Gaughram offers excellent advice about how to compose great text for ads and shares some terrific examples from the movies that will give you more good ideas.
9. E = mc² might not mean much to a lot of people but the right audience (other physicists) will feel the thrill. Focus on your readers—romance/horror/fantasy/cozy mystery—and, like Einstein, talk to them in the language they use themselves.
10. Practice your pitch over and over. In front of a mirror, your significant other, your friends, family, the dog until you are completely comfortable and confident sharing your brilliant idea!

Heed the 3 Rs: Remember, Repeat, Recycle to ride your elevator pitch to the top.
As the Nike ads advise: Just Do It!

FOR READERS WHO LOVED WATER FOR ELEPHANTS.

They rescue endangered animals, but can they rescue each other?

Find ZURI on Amazon.

Ruth invites you to join her newsletter. Or connect with her on Twitter or at Anne R. Allen’s Blog . . . with Ruth Harris 

By John Gilstrap

I’ve knocked around in my corner of the entertainment business for a quarter of a century now. Over the years, I’ve seen and heard a lot of snide talk and snobbery among authors and critics that belittles books, films and TV shows for their lack of . . . shall we say importance?

Snottery knows no bounds, it seems. Self-published authors take in on the chin quite a lot, but so do romance authors and those who write cozy mysteries and horror. When speaking a few years ago to a group of students in an MFA program, the professor who introduced me warned the assembled body to have an open mind even though I was “content to write nothing more important than commercial fiction.” If you’ve attended any of my seminars since then, you might remember that I now introduce myself as a writer of commercial fiction, whose work will likely never be taught in the classroom. I consider that to be something of a badge of honor.

I write and I consume the creative works of others for one primary purpose: to entertain or be entertained. Hard stop. If the material I’m consuming also educates, informs or instructs me at the same time, that’s terrific, but it’s not a requirement.

That said, I’m not an easy audience. The classics that I’m supposed to say I love because I make my living as an author–Hemingway, Marquez, Joyce, Fitzgerald, et. al.–for the most part put me to sleep. And Michener. Good God, James Michener. I stipulate that these authors are all brilliant, and that they have changed people’s lives, but I am unable to plow through their stories from beginning to end. Perhaps I’m a lazy reader.

Or perhaps I prefer to read great stories well told in voices that resonate in my head. Give me a Stephen King or Stephen Hunter or Tess Gerritsen or James Scott Bell, put me in a quiet room with a wee dram of smoky scotch, and I will be transported to wherever they take me.

What they write–what we write–may not be important (remember, that’s the word we agreed on), but the works inspire. Powerfully drawn good guys bring justice to powerfully drawn bad guys. Some leave more blood on the ceiling and walls than others, some present more moral ambiguity than others, but after the last page turns, right and wrong are sharply defined.

Last week, my fellow bloggers here at TKZ wrote of old television shows and old comedians. As I read those posts and the responses, it occurred to me that the common trait shared by writers, actors and comedians is a commitment to telling stories that move their respective audiences in some way. That’s what entertainment is, isn’t it?

And it works best when it surprises us. M*A*S*H was primarily a comedy, but who among us didn’t choke up the first time we learned of Henry Blake’s final plane trip? To this day, even though I’ve seen the episode a dozen times or more, the room still gets dusty every time I watch Andy Taylor open the window and tell Opie to listen to those birds that will never see their mama again.

Which brings us to the topic of courage (or lack thereof). Every week, my DVR records episodes of “12 O’Clock High”, starring Robert Lansing as General Frank Savage. I remember watching it as a kid, but all I remember are the scenes of aerial battle. The stories are really very complex and often quite moving. When you consider that the series aired when World War 2 wasn’t yet 20 years in the past, and that more pilots died in the 8th Air Force out of England than did all of the Marines in the Pacific theater, the story lines are particularly courageous. Battle fatigue (PTSD), cowardice, reckless bravery, loss of friends and the futility of war are all addressed in those episodes. They entertain because they resonate, and they resonate because we care about these young men who are forced to take exceptional risks for the benefit of others. We see courage in action. And it’s inspiring.

Fictional courage–whether on the page or on any size screen–starts with the writer, not with the characters. I tell myself that there are places I won’t go in my work, but that’s really a lie. I’ve harmed children and animals in my books, but never gratuitously. Still, I get hate mail whenever I do, and that’s fine. I figure that I moved that reader, and therefore I did my job. Sure, I moved them in a direction I didn’t intend, but at least they cared enough to write a note.

Plain vanilla stories are always safe, and they’re certainly not important. But if they’re not even inspiring, doesn’t that just make them irrelevant?

So what about you, TKZ family? What risks are you willing to take in your reading and your writing?

By PJ Parrish

We’re off to the hoosegow, the clink, con college, the gray-bar hotel for today’s First Page submission. That much is certain. But I’m gonna need your help on figuring out some of the other things going on here. Please give your time to our writer and don’t be shy about weighing in with some pointers, praise and punditry.

Case Runner

The funny thing is, my folks wanted me to be a lawyer.

It’s a profession. You’ll always make a living. Like Uncle Mike.

That was before Uncle Mike, my father’s older step-brother, went to prison for skimming trusts. He died there, in pretty short order.

After sitting through more of Dad’s drunk disorderly and domestic abuse hearings than I could count, I wasn’t interested in law. I majored in computer science, with a minor in bookmaking, as a runner for Sweet Clete Sojack. I had a little credit card harvesting going on the side: go-go growth businesses practically invited me to grab their transaction data for resale, and in a pinch I could Netstumble my way into wide-open WiFi.

But I was better at getting the info than covering my tracks, so I also did a little time. Unlike Uncle Mike, I not only got out in 18 months, but emerged with a profession, funnily enough related to law, in about the same way as I was related to Uncle Mike.

You can learn a lot of things in prison. Some, a lot, we’ll leave unsaid. But you meet people who see things just a little differently, the spaces between the itch and the scratch where money can be made.

One of these people was Simon Vann, who had been a plaintiffs’ attorney until a case where much of his plaintiff class turned out to have already handed over powers of attorney to out-of-state relatives before signing with him. The houses, the cars, the boat, the sugar on the side, were all gone in a flash. He blamed himself for one thing and one thing only.

“I called the wrong case runner. Tried to save a few bucks.” He waved liver-spotted hands around the prison library. “Worked out great, huh?”

I asked him what a case runner was.

“See, there are laws against an attorney cooking up a cause of action and then finding warm bodies for plaintiffs. They call it ‘champertry’. So there’s a service, kind of a grey area, people who generate leads, finding and referring people whose issues jibe with the theory of the case. For a small fee per head, the attorney gets parties already qualified by the case runner.” Simon stared at the book in his hand, a history of power boats. “He hopes.”

______________________________

I’m back. First off, I really like this writer’s voice. It’s unique, punchy and gives me a pretty decent feel for the narrator’s character — or lack of same. But we need a bit more flesh on the bones, which I will get into in a moment.

This opening is essentially back story. Which is a no-no, yes? Well, not necessarily. What I call character-intro openings can be effective when done well. But the writing must be razor sharp for the reader to be patient and wait for something to happen ie action.

One of the best character openings, which I often cite in workshops, is in Steve Hamilton’s debut A Cold Day In Paradise. He is introducing his series character Alex Knight with this paragraph:

There is a bullet lodged in my chest, less than a centimeter from my heart. I don’t think about it much anymore. It’s just a part of me now. But every once in a while, on a certain kind of night, I remember that bullet. I feel the weight of it inside me. I can feel its metallic hardness. And even though the bullet has been warming inside my body for fourteen years, on a night like this, when it is dark enough and the wind is blowing, the bullet feels as cold as the night itself.

Yes, this is backstory, but the bullet next to heart image is compelling and deeply personal.  Here’s another slow backstory character opening that I like, from Tana French:

My father once told me that the most important thing every man should know is what he would die for. If you don’t know that, he said, what are you worth? Nothing. You’re not a man at all. I was thirteen and he was three quarters of the way into a bottle of Gordon’s finest, but hey, good talk. As far as I recall, he was willing to die a) for Ireland, b) for his mother, who had been dead for ten years, and c) to get that bitch Maggie Thatcher.

All the same, at any moment of my life since that day, I could have told you straight off the bat exactly what I would die for. At first it was easy: my family, my girl, my home. Later, for a while, things got more complicated. These days they hold steady, and I like that; it feels like something a man can be proud of. I would die for, in no particular order, my city, my job, and my kid.

Slow, measured, nothing happening here but the character trying to get into our heads. This goes to French’s style. And here is maybe my favorite character-doing-nothing-but thinking opening, from Mike Connelly’s The Poet.

Death is my beat. I make my living from it. I forge my professional relationship on it. I treat it with the passion and precision of an undertaker — somber and sympathetic about it when I’m with the bereaved, a skilled craftsman with it when I’m alone. I’ve always thought the secret to dealing with death was to keep it at arm’s length. That’s the rule. Don’t let it breathe in your face.

But my rule didn’t protect me. When the two detectives came for me and told me about Sean, a cold numbness quickly enveloped me. It was like I was on the other side of the aquarium window. I moved as if underwater — back and forth, back and forth — and looked out at the rest of the world through the glass. From the backseat of their car I could see my eyes in the rearview mirror, flashing each time we passed beneath a streetlight. I recognized the thousand-yard stare I had seen in the eyes of fresh widows I had interviewed over the years.

So yes, you can start by having your character thinking instead of doing. But it damn well better be so compelling that your reader is as well hooked as a fighting marlin. Does the opening to Case Runner succeed? Do you find this Unnamed Man narrator seductive? Does he force you to turn the page?

Well, almost. As I said, the voice has great tone to it. But it lacks the empathy bond that both Connelly and Hamilton forge. Other than the fact Unnamed Man is a bit of wise guy, I don’t get much sense of personality or feel much connection to him. I know that empathy for a character needs to be built over the course of an entire book, but we don’t know quite where we’re going with Unnamed Man here.

And here’s the rub. I think, though I am not sure because the writer isn’t specific enough, that Unnamed Man is going to go to the dark side and become a case runner. Which makes him at best an anti-hero. Will we want to root for him if he’s got the morals of a slug? Is the plot’s trajectory going to create a character arc that has him finding his way back into the light? We can hope.

Couple years ago, Steve Hamilton, on hiatus from his Alex Knight character, started a second series starring an anti-hero named Nick Mason.  Here’s the book’s teaser back copy:

Nick Mason is out of prison. After five years inside, he has just been given the one thing a man facing 25-to-life never gets, a second chance. But it comes at a terrible price.

Nick Mason is out of prison, but he’s not free. Whenever his cell phone rings, day or night, he must answer it and follow whatever order he is given. It’s the deal he made with Darius Cole, a criminal kingpin serving a double-life term who still runs an empire from his prison cell.

Forced to commit increasingly more dangerous crimes, hunted by the relentless detective who put him behind bars, and desperate to go straight and rebuild his life with his daughter and ex-wife, Nick will ultimately have to risk everything–his family, his sanity, and even his life–to finally break free.

See the point I am trying to make for our writer? If your guy starts out as a black hat, you need to make us care that he has a chance. He needs a journey, not just of plot but character. Redemption is a powerful theme in fiction. I hope this is where our writer is taking us.

Okay. But we have a basic structure problem beyond that. And it creates confusion. When and where is this scene taking place? After several paragraphs of backstory, in which we learn that Unnamed Man served 18 months in prison and got out, we get the first “action” scene — Unnamed Man talking to Simon Vann. They seem to be in a prison library, so that made me assume that Unnamed Man is also a prisoner. See the problem? The writer told us he was out, yet here we are behind bars. This is not a flashback; it is poor structure. Plus the writer tipped his plot hand too early by revealing in backstory narrative that he emerged from prison ironically with a new profession related to the law.

If the writer wants to stay with this backstory opening, he needs a way to gracefully transition to the PRESENT IN PRISON. Which is where the story really starts. It can be as simple as “I was thinking of my Dad (or Uncle Milt) or whatever, when I walked into the library and saw Simon Vann sitting at a table surrounded by a twelve volumes of The Supreme Court Reporter. 

Then have Unnamed Man go over and strike up the conversation. The way it is written is so bare bones we can’t easily figure out what is going on, where we are, and why this encounter is even happening. Give it dramatic context.  Has Simon been considering trying to drag Unnamed Man into his case runner scheme? Has Unnamed Man heard that Simon is recruiting? We need context. This is all happening in a plot vacuum.

Now let’s talk about the idea of case running itself. I’ve never heard of it, but then I am not steeped in law or legal thrillers. My sister Kelly knew immediately but she can quote every line of dialogue from Law & Order.  If, like me, you didn’t know what a case runner is, could you figure it out from Simon’s description? I’d guess no. Here is what Simon says:

“There are laws against an attorney cooking up a cause of action and then finding warm bodies for plaintiffs. They call it ‘champertry’. So there’s a service, kind of a grey area, people who generate leads, finding and referring people whose issues jibe with the theory of the case. For a small fee per head, the attorney gets parties already qualified by the case runner. He hopes.”

This sounds like something out of Wikipedia, not like a person would really talk. It needs to be filtered through Simon Vann’s particular personality prism. And again, it needs context. Why did this topic even come up? Why are they talking about it? It is just thrown out there with no reason, so why do we care? It needs to be a scene, with logic and dialogue between the two characters.

I found a good lawyer’s site that explains it better than Simon did — which is saying alot considering how bad lawyers are at breaking things down in real English. Essentially, case running is a fancy name for ambulance chasing. Bear with this long explanation because it goes to a point I want to make, again, about character arc:

More often than not, “ambulance chasing” is carried out not by attorneys, but by others known as “runners”. Case runners are not licensed to practice law. Rather, they are hired by accident attorneys to do whatever is necessary to get accident victims to hire a personal injury lawyer. And it doesn’t stop there. After the runner gets the injured accident victim to hire the lawyer, the victim is then coerced into going to a doctor who also works with the runner.

In order for these predatory “runners” to find their prey, they listen to police scanners; offer significant cash bribes to accident victims; they confuse the injured accident victims with false information; and, before an ambulance arrives, offer them rides right from the accident scene to a medical office, where the runner will get paid a handsome “referral fee” by the doctors- thousands of dollars. Sometimes, the runners don’t get to the accident scene in time to lure accident victims away from proper medical care. But that doesn’t stop these runners from harassing accident victims. Hospital workers, ambulance drivers, even police officers will sell these runners your most personal information for hefty prices. Armed with this information, runners and ambulance chasers will visit houses, text, call, and write accident victims until they relent.

Make no mistake about it- hustling cases like this is illegal and unethical. But since there is more money to be made selling accident victims and their personal, private information to the highest bidder than there is selling drugs on the street; the “runners” aren’t running scared. Instead, they are running all the way to the bank.

Wow…really good fodder for a anti-hero plot, right? He’s a sleazy, Better Call Saul type of dude who preys on vulnerable people and sells your personal info on the street to the highest bidder! Now that’s a great start for any character, so kudos to the writer for recognizing this potential.

But…

If Unnamed Man remains a predator throughout the whole book and learns nothing, what happens? We won’t care about him. And that is death to any book.

So, to go back to structure again, this opening really needs a good scene of extended dialogue between Simon Vann and Unnamed Man explaining what a case runner is and it needs to set up the plot catalyst that Unnamed Man is going to the dark side.

Let me do some quick line editing to make a few other points.

The funny thing is, my folks wanted me to be a lawyer.  I assume the writer means that it’s ironic that his parents wanted him to be a lawyer but then he became a case running sleazo?

It’s a profession. You’ll always make a living. Like Uncle Mike.

That was before Uncle Mike, my father’s older step-brother, went to prison for skimming trusts. He died there, in pretty short order.

After sitting through more of Dad’s drunk disorderly and domestic abuse hearings than I could count, I wasn’t interested in law. Nice bit of sad backstory, but it could be a tad more personalized. After sitting in the back of too many courtrooms next to my crying mother, watching my dad….I majored in computer science, where? We need to know where this story is taking place and this would drop a hint. with a minor in bookmaking, as a runner for Sweet Clete Sojack. I had a little credit card harvesting going on the side: go-go growth businesses practically invited me to grab their transaction data for resale, and in a pinch I could Netstumble my way into wide-open WiFi. Again, this is nice voice but it’s a little thin. Can we have a hint as to why a guy who made it to college felt compelled to run numbers and steal credit card info? The problem is, you are really setting him up as unlikeable.

But I was better at getting the info than covering my tracks, so I also did a little time. Again, a little thin on telling details. What was he busted for? Can you make it more personal and involving for us? Unlike Uncle Mike, I not only got out in 18 months, but emerged with a profession, funnily enough related to law, in about the same way as I was related to Uncle Mike. On first read, this seems like cheeky good writing. But it is really confusing because in a couple graphs, we’re right back in prison. And, dear writer, you gave away your main plot point too easily. Him emerging from prison with a dark side job is a cool BAM! plot moment. Don’t bury it in a tossed-off narrative comment.

You can learn a lot of things in prison. Some, a lot, we’ll leave unsaid. But you meet people who see things just a little differently, the spaces between the itch and the scratch where money can be made. Syntax problem here. Do you mean they see things just a little clearly, like recognizing that space between the itch…

One of these people was Simon Vann, who had been a plaintiffs’ attorney until a case where much of his plaintiff class turned out to have already handed over powers of attorney to out-of-state relatives before signing with him. The houses, the cars, the boat, the sugar on the side, were all gone in a flash. He blamed himself for one thing and one thing only.  How does he know this? 

“I called the wrong case runner. Tried to save a few bucks.” He waved liver-spotted hands around the prison library. “Worked out great, huh?”

I asked him what a case runner was. Again, this conversation must have the structure and context of a dramatic scene. Why are they talking about this? You have to slow down and choreograph your scene with more detail and clarity. 

“See, there are laws against an attorney cooking up a cause of action and then finding warm bodies for plaintiffs. They call it ‘champertry’. So there’s a service, kind of a grey area, people who generate leads, finding and referring people whose issues jibe with the theory of the case. For a small fee per head, the attorney gets parties already qualified by the case runner.” Simon stared at the book in his hand, a history of power boats. “He hopes.” As I said, the definition of case runner is essential to your book. You have to break down in layman terms, even if it’s coming from the mouth of a lawyer. Remember, Unnammed Man is NOT a lawyer, so he can ask “dumb” questions for the reader. First, figure out a reason for this conversation to be happening, then give us DIALOGUE ie action. Example:

I had heard around the exercise yard that Vann was looking to hire someone to work on the outside. It was big money for little work, rumor was. I was getting out in eight weeks and with my record had no chance of scoring something big in the computer biz.

Simon looked up at me as I approached his table. “I hear you’re looking for work,” he said.

How he had figured that out I’d never know. But I took it for a cue to slide into the chair across from him.

Then start the dialogue about what a case runner is. And your plot and character is off and running.

One last nit. You notice how annoying it was for me to keep using the phrase Unnamed Man? You need to find a way to gracefully tell us your guy’s name and quickly.

So, I hope you find this useful and not too discouraging. As I said, you’ve got some writer chops. You just need to figure out the structure issues and more important, how you want to make us want to root for your guy. Thanks for submitting!

My granddaughter S. went missing for a very short time several years ago. 

It happened on a Thursday during the first week of June. S. was a student at a wonderful public elementary school in the Clintonville neighborhood of Columbus. A picnic for the students, teachers, and parents was — and still is — annually held on the school playground during the closing hours of the last day of class. My son J. — her father — took an extended lunch hour from his job and dutifully presented at the time appointed. He was somewhat puzzled when he did not see S. among the students cavorting around the swings. J. approached S.’s teacher and inquired as to her whereabouts. The teacher asked another teacher, who asked another, who asked the school secretary, who asked the principal. Within the course of a few minutes, a hue and cry quietly started up, one that was on the verge of quickly rounding the corner to full-blown hysteria. J., having learned at his father’s knee how to react to an emergency, fought down the tide of his own rising panic and quickly called his neighbor to ask if S. was in sight. The neighbor advised that yes, S.  was on J’s front porch, bearing the look of someone who finds themselves in a situation resulting from an action that wasn’t entirely thought through prior to its execution.  

It was learned a bit later that S., being a somewhat willful child at that time, had concluded that she had experienced enough school for the year and decided to skip the picnic. She didn’t think to tell anyone about her decision, and with the skill of a Ms. Pac-Man circumvented the carefully maintained school security labyrinth which was in place to keep such a thing from occurring. She then walked the few blocks from her school to her home in order to jumpstart her summer vacation by a couple of hours.   

J. told the teachers that S. was at home. Those assembled collectively breathed a sigh of relief. As J. left the school to deal with the wayward S. he heard the name “Kelly Prosser” mentioned as the instructors talked among themselves. He wondered who she was. 

Kelly Ann Prosser in 1982 had been an eight-year-old student at a much-acclaimed alternative school in the same neighborhood as my granddaughter’s. The school year was barely three weeks old when Kelly disappeared while walking home. Her body was found two days later in a cornfield located in a quiet community contiguous to Columbus. She had been beaten, raped, and murdered. 

Several individuals were questioned by Columbus police detectives but no one was ever charged with Kelly Ann’s murder. J., who was four years old at the time, probably wondered why his parents held him and his younger siblings just a little more tightly and watched them just a bit more closely for the next, oh, thirty-eight years or so (and counting). For the teachers at Kelly Ann’s school, and virtually every school in the area., there was an additional nightmare a-borning. Whoever visited the horrors of Kelly Ann’s final hours upon her was, as far as anyone knew, still out there watching and waiting for another opportunity. While the safety of their students was uppermost in the minds of the teachers and administrators, I suspect that no one wanted to bear the burden of having another such act repeated on or after their watch. 

That fear carried over across the decades. The Columbus Police Department, for its part, never gave up on Kelly’s case. Decades passed. Forensic tools were created, improved, and sharpened. The Columbus Police  Cold Case Unit, announced on June 26, 2020, that the case had been closed. A DNA sample obtained from material originally gathered at the crime scene conclusively linked her attack and death to one Harold Warren Jarrell. He was no stranger to the criminal justice system. Jarrell had been arrested, tried, convicted, and incarcerated for abducting a little girl in 1977 from another Columbus neighborhood. He was released from prison after five years and had been walking among the innocent and unknowing for but a short time before Kelly Ann’s path crossed his. Jarrell for whatever reason was not considered a suspect in her murder at the time, and at some subsequent point left Columbus, drifting across the country with stops in Florida and Las Vegas among other places, more often than not attracting the attention of law enforcement before moving on rather quickly and without notice. He met his end at some point — how, where, and why is not immediately clear — and thus cannot face justice for Kelly Ann’s murder and the grief that ripples through time across the lives of her family members to this day. Investigations being conducted in other jurisdictions indicate that Jarrell’s horrible misdeeds continued. One can only hope that his end was slow and excruciating, one where any calls for help which he might have made were unanswered at least and mocked at best. 

It is people such as Jarrell who cause me to prefer the company of dogs and cats to people. That said, the tenaciousness of the personnel of the Columbus Police Cold Case Unit — with a mighty and timely assist from a forensic genealogical service named AdvancedDNA —  restores, at least partially, my faith in humanity.

I am well aware that in the majority of cases of sexual molestation and abuse the victim and the aggressor are known to each other. There is still a sizable group of opportunistic predators who randomly prey upon the innocent. There are tools available to combat them. Most if not all county sheriff departments now provide a sexual offenders’ database on their websites. There is also a smartphone app for iPhones named Offender Locator which I cannot vouch for, but I can for Truthfinder, an Android app that provides sobering information about sex offenders living and working within a given area.  You may want to consult this should you or a family member decide to move to a new neighborhood or take things a step further with that new acquaintance who might seem just a tad too friendly with your child. The writers and authors among you may also — and I am not making light of the problem by suggesting this, not at all — use this app as a means of obtaining inspiration for the truly wretched characters in your latest work in progress. The woods, as they say, are full of them. The lambs walk in sunlight and the wolves wait in darkness for one or more to stray into shadow. 

Be safe. Be well. Be alert.